Hearts and Minds Nourished by Nature

Armed Forces day saw the launch of our new Forces of Nature programme. This is a new venture for ex members of the armed forces. It is aimed at helping service personnel re-adjust to community life by providing them with new skills and support. Jim Long, aged 98 years, picked up the cheque for Nature Therapy CIC from the Ministry of Defence. Jim knows all about the re-adjustments needed when leaving the forces. He was a prisoner of War in Burma during the Second World War. He was a young motorbike despatch rider when he was captured whilst fighting in Singapore. So, only fitting he was escorted to the ceremony in a motorbike group called the SRC. They even used the very same type of motorbike he rode as a young man - a M20. Many thanks to everyone involved for making it such a special event.

Nature Therapy CIC programmes are all grounded in sensory experiences and sensory perception. In other words, experiencing the world through our senses and not just our minds - which as an academic I am terribly guilty at times of dwelling only in the grey matter. Today I have been sat in the sunshine on a cliff top overlooking the sea with my dog, busily researching sensory perception in relation to autism. A key concept in autism is there can be challenges in organising and processing sensory experiences. Each one of us experiences our sensory world in a different way, so the challenge is to make nature therapy unique to an individual by tuning in to their own way of sensing the world.We can do this by mapping sensitivities and strengths in sensory perceptions. However, that is not always as straight forward as it may first seem. In autism, the world can be experienced through blended, distorted, mono, fragmented or delayed sensory perception. These ways of experiencing the world can lead to behaviours others may view as challenging, or anti-social instead of seeing them as reactions to sensory experiences.As a person fascinated by the gift of our senses, what I find the most intriguing is something called synaesthesia. This is where sensory perceptions blend so that words are seen as colour, or touch is perceived as sounds. Many people who have this way of being are artists, musicians, writers or poets. It seems human differences in sensory perception can inspire some to create celebrated masterpieces. However, for others it can result in a lack of acceptance of the manner in which they express their sensory selves.

In my research into creating a nature programme for children and young people on the autistic spectrum I came across the work of Wendy Lawson. Wendy is autistic so writes from a powerful expert base of having inside knowledge. This is known as embodied knowledge or 'experts by experience'. What better type of expert can there be?In her book Wendy defines the learning style of a child with autism as monotropic. In other words the ability to tightly focus their interest on one specific topic. Wendy's work, along with other embodied experts such as Temple Grandin, are helping map the framework of the Nature Therapy CIC programme. Each child or young person is unique in how they express their way of being, so designing a nature programme that will meet each child's individual needs is a challenge. Notwithstanding, it is a challenge I am relishing and focusing on monotropism as a learning style has been the starting point.The next stage is working alongside the 14 families who have volunteered to help co-create the nature programme to ensure that it comes as much from expert experience and embodied knowledge as possible.